“Don’t you love chocolate chip cookies when they’re straight out of the oven? The chocolate is melting a bit and you risk burning your tongue because you can hardly wait. These are the best-tasting chocolate chip cookies ever. You force yourself to slow down and put one in your mouth. It’s really soft and you just hold it there as long as you can to savour it while you pour a tall, cold glass of milk? Then the kitchen floor falls out from under you and you’re sucked down into quicksand and you’re trying not to die and you can’t figure out why God hates you and all you want is to get away and make the woman of your dreams love you. You only have seconds before the suffocating sludge is over your head and you’re about to find out if what follows this tortured life is hell or oblivion. Your heart is full of regret and if you can just live, you swear you’ll turn your life around. Kind of like that, but with more jokes.”

No reply yet, but I’m guessing he’s not a reader, anyway.

If they do email again, I’ll suggest they consider breaking down and read a sample chapter.

Fun post, Robert, and clever too! Hope it gets you a lot of chocolate chip cookie lovers as readers! Hey, btw, is it an example of applying John Locke’s famous “transfer” principle for successful marketing? If so, congrats, because it doesn’t come off that way – just all very natural and fun.

Heh. I wasn’t thinking about John Locke but I guess it uses the same principle to get inside the reader’s defences. Don’t know if my description worked though. I haven’t heard back from that potential reader. Probably won’t. Might have scared them away from books and into baking cookies. Best case is you eat chocolate chip cookies while a storm rages outside and there’s nothing to do but snuggle up, relax and get transported into someone else’s life through the magic of a book. What I just described is my ideal. I don’t think that’s transfer marketing per se. It’s just what I want.